At the risk of writing an extremely depressing blog entry, I am going to center this particular entry on the idea of death as I’ve encountered it recently here in Peru. I’ve never given much thought to the incorporation of views of death and dying as a an important aspect of culture, but as I’ve spent time in Poroto I’ve been exposed to various cases of death and mourning. Transportation as a whole in Peru can be enough to give you a mild case of anxiety during travel, and the windy roads leading to my site are often conducive to traffic accidents. There aren’t speed limits (or at least not enforced speed limits), so combis, colectivos, taxis, buses, and personal cars fly through the carretera at lightning speeds, often passing other vehicles with barely a second to spare. While I don’t know any statistics about the rate of car accidents in Peru, I do know that they don’t seem to happen as often as one might expect given the chaotic driving habits here. However, they do happen and the most recent accident was quite horrifying.
I was eating lunch with with my host family when word spread that there’d been a car crash between an 18 wheeler and a station wagon taxi in Shiran, which is the entrance to my site. Various victims died immediately and others were rushed to the hospital, which is located in the capital. As word spread about the crash, my entire town emptied and literally ran to the site of the accident in Shiran. I also got pulled along to see the remains of the crash, and was horrified to see the 18 wheeler crushed and plastered against the house it collided into. The station wagon was barely recognizable, but passengers were still trapped inside. I couldn’t believe people had gathered around to observe this site, as passengers who had died on impact were still at the scene, trapped in the vehicles or covered in blankets and waiting for the coroner from Trujillo. I left immediately and wished I hadn’t seen the remains of such a bad accident. It seemed perfectly normal for the event to be observed by the community, and although people were clearly distraught it was turned into a spectacle of sorts.
This led me to question the differences in the perception of death between Peru and the US, and although I certainly can’t draw any extensive conclusions, it was interesting to observe reactions and habits regarding tragedies. Personally I think the most shocking reaction to the accident was the widespread interest in seeing the actual remains of the crash immediately after it took place. My town was completely cleared out and hundreds of people gathered around the scene of the accident when the victims who had passed away were still trapped inside the car and laid under blankets on the ground. People were crying and reacting to the consequences of the crash, but it also seemed like many treated it like a form of entertainment.
The accident resulted in 5 deaths, including a woman who lived in my town. Considering the size of Poroto, this woman was known to most everyone. In the days following the accident there was a large funeral in which the entire town, including me, attended. It began with a church service in a large open area where food was provided and words were shared about the life of this woman. She had three small children, who broke my heart when they played their recorders to their mom’s favorite hymn. From there, the pallbearers led a procession followed by the town where we walked through Poroto, stopping at all of the meaningful places in her life. The procession continued for several miles, all the way to the caserio in which she lived, and then ended at the cemetery for the burial. Although an accident and funeral is clearly not something I would choose to experience, it was interesting to participate in the town’s customs for funerals and see their reactions to death.
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